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Speaking of inconsistencies in government\u2019s stand, while the current regulation was being issued in pursuance or order by the National Green Tribunal state authorities went for demolition-drives razing boundary walls of five farmhouses allegedly encroaching the forests at Raisina village in Sohna, two farmhouses in Kot village and demolishing an under-construction industrial unit at Delhi-Faridabad border.<\/p>\n
Reporting on encroachments, Gurgaon town planner (enforcement), Narender Solanki went on record to state that, \u201cWe were shocked that illegal structures on Aravallis had electricity connection from power discom DHBVN. The power department should put a stop on this. We have come across cases where electricity connections in such areas encourage more and more people to carry out unauthorized constructions.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is a widely known fact that the NCR has been a witness of a certain unethical connivance of local revenue officials and panchayats<\/i> or gram sabhas<\/i> or village group of elders to make money.<\/p>\n
This involves selling off uninhabitable village land meant for purposes of grazing etc, also known as common land (saamlaat deh<\/i>), to land sharks or private real estate entities who then fragment these tracts into plots to be further sold to buyers.<\/p>\n
This rampant privatization and fragmentation have been possible only due to many anomalies in the Punjab Village Common Lands Act of 1961.<\/p>\n
To redress this problem, the Supreme Court in its several judgments, more so in January 2012 Jagpal Singh one, ruled that all panchayat<\/i> lands must be returned to the gram sabha<\/i> as it cannot be used for any other purpose.<\/p>\n
In consonance with these rulings chunks of privatized common lands were returned to the panchayats<\/i> in villages of Mangar, Kot, Mewla, Maharajpur and others in Faridabad, and Raisena, Ghata, Bandhwari and Roj ka Gujjar in Gurgaon.<\/p>\n
While 80% of the range is governed directly by the Revenue Department, just 20% come under the jurisdiction of the Forest Department.<\/p>\n
Other threats that this green cover faces are large scale, brazen and illegal mining activities in the Aravallis and cutting down of trees by the poor for domestic fuel in complete prohibition of the Aravalli notification of May 1992 that bans construction of dwellings, farm houses, shed, mining activity or cutting of trees.<\/p>\n
Samir Thapar of the Wildlife Protection Society of India elaborates that these threats combine to decimate the flora and fauna in the natural corridors.<\/p>\n
In the light of these problems if the state falls short of defining the Aravallis as forests then there can be no hope left for saving these invaluable and irreplaceable reserves and the loss would be of one and all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Aravalli Range. In a single stroke, the Forest Department of the northern state of Haryana has issued an order that will push the already threatened fragile ecosystem of the Aravallis forest range to the brink of extinction. The regulation designates large tracts of the forest range as \u201cnot forest,\u201d writes Priyanka Bhardwaj. No land…<\/p>\n